On Monday, August 28, three weeks after prisoners began a protest, Bahraini authorities met with representatives of advocacy groups demanding reforms in the country’s prison system. However, the prisoners have reportedly rejected the proposal from the government claiming that it does not address their concerns, and have termed it “too little, too late,” Al-Jazeera reported.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy (BIRD), told Al-Jazeera that prisoners have decided to continue the strike due to the failure of the government to address “the core demands” of the strikers.
More than 800 prisoners in Bahrain’s largest prison, the Jau Reformation and Rehabilitation Centre, have been on hunger strike since August 7 demanding basic reforms in the country’s prison system and the end of human rights abuse inside jails.
The participants in the largest ever prison hunger strike in Bahrain have been specifically demanding an end to solitary confinement, increase in time permitted outside the cells from the current one hour a day, access to medical care, and right to perform group prayers.
The strikers include Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is considered to be the founder of Bahrain’s human rights movement. He has been imprisoned since 2011 for participating in popular protests against the monarchy. His health has deteriorated while on hunger strike. He was rushed to a hospital on the 19th day of his strike where he was admitted in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), according to his daughter Maryam al-Khawaja who lives in Denmark. She called the treatment of her father by the Bahraini authorities “slow murder.”
Al-Khawaja and most of the prisoners on strike have been charged with attempting to overthrow the country’s royal regime by participating in the popular demonstrations in 2011, which coincided with the region-wide protests against oppressive governments.
Al-Khawaja in 2012 completed a 110-day hunger strike against his wrongful confinement and for the rights of political prisoners.
According to BIRD, the prisoners’ strike has received widespread popular support and a large number of common Bahrainis have carried out protests in solidarity with the prisoners.
